Bud and Vicki Hogan's 1996 Appalachian Trail Journey
May 27
Sassafras Gap to Plum orchard Shelter.....................................................10.5 miles
Normal breakfast of oatmeal and coffee. Taped blisters. Broke camp. Hiked out. Something strange about some of these trees, they just don't look normal. Lightning!! Huge strips of bark have been blasted off of some of the trees by lightning. From the very top to the bottom of the trees you could trace the route the lightning took to the ground.
We stopped for a snack at the shelter. Our feet perpetually wet, we got to a road at a gap, and spread out to have lunch. We were starting to get into some patterns. One pattern was to spread out the emergency blanket on the ground when we stopped for lunch. I carried it tightly folded on the outside of my pack, with easy access. This made our lunches much more enjoyable, not having to sit in the dirt or wet grass. It also gave us a place to lie down without getting bugs all over us. The weight of the emergency blanket is just a few ounces and well worth it. And it had "saved our bacon" from the cold the day before.
We sat just off of the roadway near a parking lot. Several cars parked there, day hikers most likely. One vehicle had two people working on their packs. As we ate, one of them approached. Very friendly, pleasant person, mid to late thirties, perhaps. Tom, and his friend Tom (silver haired, 50's) were hiking in, spending the night and hiking out the next day. We finished lunch and started in, and were soon passed by the Toms. We kept up with them all the way to the shelter.
Plum Orchard Shelter. Now this was the way a shelter should look. Brand new, triple decker. WOW! I'm impressed. Hung clothes out to dry. Threat of rain still looming. Decide to sleep in the shelter. I took out my pathetic water filter that I had already tried to fix. I had torn it down as far as possible, cleaned what I could and reassembled it. Still broke. Tom (W) (Harley-Davidson man...not his trail name, but he loves his Harley) volunteered to look at it. I'll take any help I can get. I watched him disassemble it, (just as I had disassembled it the day before) but he looked more knowledgeable than I, just the way he examined every part as he worked. As he worked I asked about what he did for a living. Without looking up from the water pump he responded, "I'm an engineer with the water company." I almost broke up, he never cracked a smile. Seriously. He was an engineer with a water company. Sometimes I get lucky. If anyone could fix this piece of junk water filter, surely, it would be an engineer with the water company. No luck. We would be using iodine for quite sometime. But I didn't know if I had enough to last until the next place to buy some. No problem. Tom (W) insisted that I take his. They were getting off of the trail in the morning and could get some more in town. We gratefully accepted. And again, these trail angels wouldn't let us pay for their hospitality.
Soon the four of us were joined by "George the painter". Quite old, from Mass., had been southbound section hiking for years, hoping to finish the AT this year or next. George warned us about Albert Mountain. It started to rain, we brought in our wet clothes that had been hanging out to dry. Getting dark. No one else coming in tonight. George takes the top. Tom and Tom take the middle and Vicki and I set up our tent inside on the bottom. We sit up for a while. We talked. Tom (F), cyclist and storyteller, kept us entertained. Tom (W) shared some of his homemade beef jerky with us. It was great. Vicki found a walking stick out on the trail, stripped the bark off of it, it had some style, some character. She would keep this stick until the end of the hike (and take it home with her). This evening was the best so far. We were in a great shelter while the rain fell, and we had some of the best company that you could ask for.
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